• Jason Taylor's blog
• Log in or register to post comments

Applies To:  Dynamics 365 (on-premises)

You can now run Dynamics 365 (on-premises) with SQL Server 2016 CU2 using database compatibility level 110 (SQL Server 2012 compatibility level). The application’s performance is improved when you set the organization database with trace flag 1224. This setting reduces the CPU usage by disabling lock escalation based on the number of locks. For details, please see Improve performance when you use Microsoft Dynamics 365 with SQL Server 2016.

The performance of SQL Server 2016 is also improved with the High Availability Enhancements. The obsolete Database Mirroring technology has been replaced with a more efficient Always On Basic Availability Groups for high availability.

SQL Server 2016 comes with a set of rich capabilities that can help you solve and meet your business needs. The Dynamics 365 engineering team continues to evaluate these capabilities to enhance the application’s performance in upcoming releases. An example of these capabilities that we are evaluating is the ability to perform Native compilation of Tables and Stored Procedures. This capability allows faster data access and more efficient query execution for better performance. Another capability that you should consider is the In-memory Columnstore. In-memory Columnstore uses column compression to reduce the storage footprint and improve query performance for data warehousing scenarios.

Please see What’s New in SQL 2016 (Database Engine) to help you maintain and fine-tune your applications.

See Also:

• Improve performance of highly concurrent workloads – SQL Server Customer Advisory Team
• SQL Server 2016 with Cumulative Update 2 (CU2) – Server & Tools Blog: Cumulative Update #2 for SQL Server 2016 RTM
• SQL Server 2016 In-memory OLTP and ColumnStore
• December 2016 update for Dynamics 365 (online and on-premises)
• Software requirements for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Server

– Paul Liew

The post Timing Is Everything for Life Sciences Organizations appeared first on Merit Solutions.

Hot off the Microsoft griddle Microsoft Dynamics GP January 2017 Hotfix….RELEASED – Microsoft Dynamics GP Community

The post Microsoft Dynamics GP January 2017 Hotfix….RELEASED – Microsoft Dynamics GP Community appeared first on DynamicAccounting.net.

The medical device manufacturing industry is highly competitive and highly regulated. Manufacturing high-quality, life-saving products requires strict oversight of all aspects of production—from inventory to manufacturing and distribution to the end user. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has established a unique device identification (UDI) system to track medical devices with the end goals to improve patient safety, strengthen post-market surveillance, and improve the continued advancement of medical devices.

According to “UDI Basics” and other information posted on FDA.gov, the UDI final rule was released in 2013 and established a system to identify certain medical devices through their distribution and use. While there is a phased approach to this system, labels on the devices and packaging will include information about the labeler, the specific model or version of the devices, and must be in a format that includes both plain-text and automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technology. A production identifier (PI) must also be included in the labeling that identifies the lot or batch number within which the device was manufactured, serial number, expiration data, date of manufacture and the identification code for human cell, tissue, or cellular and tissue-based product that is regulated as a device.

Strengthen Medical Device Inventory Management with a Good Inventory System

Clearly there is a lot of precise data that will need to be captured and associated with each medical device released into the marketplace. Medical device manufacturers will need to take steps to strengthen inventory management whether it’s with simple assembly or for more complicated manufacturing operations. Basic enterprise resource planning (ERP) or inventory management software isn’t enough to maintain UDI compliance.

At the heart of the UDI system is a reliance on the simplicity and accuracy gained by barcoding each individual medical device. The UDI barcode typically consists of several pieces of important data that are concatenated together so that it can be captured with a single scan. This barcode commonly contains the item identifier, a serial or lot number, an expiration date, and several other pieces of data important to the supply chain. The goal is to scan this single barcode and inform all handlers of this critical information.

A barcode-based inventory system that is capable of intelligently printing and parsing this important barcode data is critical. The system must be able to interpret the complicated data standard and inform the host system. Furthermore, the ability to configure this complicated barcode parsing is important to support variations across different vendors. Panatrack has developed a highly-flexible method to handle this UDI barcode format and has implemented it in our PanatrackerGP Inventory module.

PanatrackerGP extends the functionality of Microsoft Dynamics GP to handheld computers with barcode scanners. You can track inventory from receiving, adjustments, site transfers or bin moves, and stock count with PanatrackerGP. Advanced features further strengthen inventory movement with order fulfillment, pick and pack, label printing, assembly, direct transfer and shipping integration. Automating inventory tracking saves valuable time, improves productivity of your team and provides a higher level of control over the inventory and finished products, whether they are in your warehouse, in distribution, or being used by a customer.

The FDA’s UDI system doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming, especially when you have the right technology in place. Contact Panatrack for more information about improving UDI compliance with the support of PanatrackerGP.

By Panatrack, Inventory and Asset Management for Microsoft Dynamics GP

Volumes have been written about customer engagement, which is an increasingly vital part of boosting sales, increasing membership, and satisfying both customers and prospects. While successful customer engagement requires a multi-level strategy, it doesn’t have to be complex... just thoughtful and complete.

At its essence, customer engagement can be described as sharing a pertinent message with an interested audience at the right time and frequency. And it’s not just from “you” to “them.” The very definition of engagement calls for shared interests and activities, which means giving customers and prospects the opportunity to engage with you.

Once your approach to engagement has been established, Dynamics 365 empowers you to execute your strategy efficiently and accurately measure your results for continuous improvement.

Why Engage?

Before we talk about technical and strategic customer engagement strategies, let’s look at the human side of the equation. Building relationships are at the heart of engagement: organization-to-organization, and person-to-person. Whether you’re buying, selling, or helping others deliver a product or service, it all comes down to collaborating with others to achieve mutual goals.

Consider balancing emotional and business considerations as you develop your messages. Your goal is to build valued relationships that:

• Encourage open, two-way communication
• Provide value to both parties
• Are built on trust and confidence
• Promote satisfaction and success
• Make everyone feel important

The more you align your customer engagement strategy with these principles, the more productive your relationships and results will be.

1) Your Message

By message we mean discrete information that you believe will benefit your audience. Your message should educate, illuminate, raise awareness and most importantly, contain something of value. For example, you could emphasize what readers will gain from using your product or service, or share insights that can be readily applied to improve individual and organizational performance.

The bottom line is your message should be persuasive enough to improve sales and upsell opportunities, satisfy customer wants and needs, and attract and retain different customer groups.

Dynamics 365 holds the insights you need to craft a compelling message. Stored within its data is a single view of every customer’s story: products they’ve purchased, problems they’ve experienced, prior responses to your communications and outreach, and insights into how your organization can fulfill their needs.

2) Your Audience

Once you’ve identified and developed your message, identify which groups are most interested in what you have to say. Dynamics 365 has a multitude of ways to segment your customer, prospect and partner data and create a targeted distribution list. This allows you to communicate in more personalized, purposeful, and powerful ways.

Before moving forward, make sure your message is framed around the language and priorities of your audience. For example, CEOs focus on organizational growth, profitability, reputation, and compliance, while marketing executives solve for brand awareness, lead generation and lead nurturing, and seek tools to monitor and improve their effectiveness.

Improve the results of your engagement activities by understanding and speaking directly to the needs of your audience.

3) Your Timing

Consider timing and frequency when developing a customer engagement campaign. Timing is simple: don’t talk about taxes in July or ignore buying or budgeting seasons when promoting products. For existing customers, Dynamics 365 can alert you to recent issues or tell you when it’s time to recommend an upgrade or the use of a complementary product or service. Engaging with customers proactively and anticipating their needs can have a positive impact on loyalty and satisfaction.

Frequency is another matter. If you’re executing an email drip campaign, you’ll want to communicate often enough to stay top of mind, but not so frequently that you increase opt-outs. And what’s the right rhythm for social media? Daily? Weekly? Although more is better when it comes to posting, it’s equally important that your posts are pertinent and have value. Be guided by your ability to create rich, compelling content on a consistent basis, and post at a frequency that matches that ability.

Engaging with Dynamics 365

All successful customer engagement combines business technology with the art of relationship, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the engine behind customer engagement.

Contact us and let’s discuss how InfoGrow can help you develop a robust customer engagement strategy boosts sales and builds profitable relationships with your best customers. Check out our No Results Missed pledge and take advantage of our expertise and commitment to your success.

Bob Sullivan - President, InfoGrow, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

The post 3 Simple Strategies for Successful Customer Engagement appeared first on CRM Software Blog.

Intacct has a unique General Ledger feature that I have not found in any other ERP system.   The feature that I am referring to is Adjusting Entry.  No, this is not your typical General Journal entry that one makes by selecting the Journal Entry menu item.  Rather this is the menu selection listed as “Adjusting […]

The post Adjusting Prior Periods is Easier with Intacct appeared first on NFP Tech Blog.

You cannot go to a Microsoft partner event today without hearing about AppSource. It’s not that third-parties haven’t extended Microsoft products, like Dynamics 365, in the past, but those extension/solutions haven’t driven product sales, at least not in the way Microsoft knows they could. Other companies, like Salesforce.com, have proven this model works, and Microsoft wants “in”.

AppSource for Dummies

AppSource is a marketplace of first and third party addons for Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365, Dynamics NAV and Power BI. This “marketplace” surfaces within each of the applications, directly to end users. The intention is that AppSource would be a discovery engine for end users to easily find ways to extend the application(s) to fit their particular needs. Partners and ISVs can create these “addons” and submit them to the AppSource team; once vetted by Microsoft they are made available in the AppSource Marketplace.

What’s the Difference?

AppSource is not Microsoft’ s first attempt at a Marketplace, in fact, if anything, Microsoft has suffered from too many marketplaces in the past. Each prior marketplace had its individual sponsorship from a particular product team. On their own, none of these marketplaces made much of a dent, and with limited sponsorship, they ultimately waned. AppSource is different in that it seeks to consolidate several marketplaces into a single place. In addition, I understand that it is sponsored by Scott Guthrie, so I don’t think it will be abandoned any time soon.

AppSource is not for Dummies

While AppSource has plenty of targeted point solutions for specific applications, like Dynamics 365, that is not what Microsoft is hoping will be the future of AppSource. Widgets are nice, and handy, but they will not “transform” a customer’s business. In order for an AppSource app to have a meaningful impact on a customer’s organization, it has to go much farther than a widget. Microsoft will be favoring those apps that engage multiple services, think of an application that may install in Dynamics 365, but also engages Azure and Power BI and Office 365, or vice versa. If your skills are limited to only one of these solutions, this “cross-platform” app development will be quite a challenge. But for those who brave these waters, they will be highly rewarded, in the form of Microsoft featuring these “Hero” apps in the marketplaces. While this had been a hope of Microsoft for a while now, it has suddenly become the recommended direction from them.

Missing Pieces

Ironically, the platform that allows you to offer missing pieces to end users, is missing some pieces itself to help you do that. This is not a fault or strategy, it’s just where it is so far, starting from non-existence a few months ago. The head of AppSource recently alerted me that his team is “Shipping” weekly. “Shipping” is a term leftover from the old days that Microsoft still uses internally, basically it means that they are “publishing” new features and capabilities weekly.

Shifting from Quantity to Quality

When AppSource launched there were but a handful of apps, widgets mostly. Like anything new, trying to get to scale quickly, you may “lower the bar” a bit to help goose the engine. As a result AppSource now has over 300 apps and about 1,000 queued up in vetting. That extraordinary success is a direct result of Microsoft’s banging the AppSource drum loudly. Once you move from a “start-up” handful, to a thousand in the queue, you can start to get pickier. I am sure Microsoft is quite picky right now, and I would expect a fraction of those in the queue to actually gain approval. In order for AppSource to succeed, customers will actually need to see it as a marketplace of high-value, well-built, reliable and fully supported applications. Not all will meet that bar, and in fact I expect many of the original ones from launch will be dropped for this same reason. While that may tick off a few early ISVs, it is a natural and logical progression. Microsoft does not need a million apps in AppSource, they only need as many good ones as they can get.

Can you Make Money?

I would say the jury is still out on this one. I have spoken to many ISVs who say that “it is too early to tell”. It would seem to me, that if AppSource is going to be integrated directly into all of the applications, making discovery of your app a one-click effort, you really cannot afford not to be there. Microsoft will be putting the pedal to the metal on promoting AppSource to end customers, and it won’t be long before customers assume that apps in AppSource are the only ones there are. To a customer it will certainly look that way, if they do an AppSource search and don’t find what they are looking for, will they really jump out and do a web search for non-AppSource alternatives?

Thank the Pioneers

Like any new technology solution, AppSource needed some ISVs to jump in and make the investment to give them enough oomph to open the door, Guinea Pigs if you will. Guinea Pigs are the ones who deal with all of the issues and bugs of a new platform, and it is not a fun place to be. The value to a Guinea Pig is getting in first and “knowing” the platform from the inside-out, as a result they have an advantage when it hits mainstream, but make no mistake, there is a heavy cost for that.

Is AppSource “Ready for Prime-Time”

I think, while AppSource still has a ways to go… it is “Ready Enough”.  If you are able to think beyond “widgets”, have the ability to develop quality cross-platform solutions, are able to support those solutions to users, and don’t mind working on a platform that is still evolving… then now is a good time to jump in. While there may still be a few quirks, the Guinea Pigs have already suffered through most of them for you.

The post Dynamics 365 – Taking the AppSource Path appeared first on Steve Mordue.

Join your local Microsoft US team for the SMB Partner Insider call on Friday, February 3. You’ll get valuable, actionable information to help your Microsoft business grow. Presenters on these calls include the Microsoft Regional General Manager, Partner Sales Executives, Partner Channel Development Managers, and Partner Technology Strategists.

What to expect during the SMB Partner Insider calls

• The presentation will be available for download throughout the call
• Links will be posted during the presentation that correspond to the current slide in the chat window
• You can ask questions in the chat window at any time during the call, and we’ll do our best to answer them

A copy of the presentation, call recording, and transcript will be shared the following week via email.

Register for your February 2017 Regional Insider call

East Region – Friday, February 3 at 9:00 AM Eastern Time

Call topics

• Partner Spotlight: TechHouse IT
• Partner Insider Scoop: Upcoming events that you don’t want to miss, plus offers in market and resources
• Build and accelerate your Microsoft Azure practice
• Business insights from Nancie Williams, Regional General Manager, US SMB East Region

Sign up for the February 3 East Region partner call

Download the calendar reminder from Yammer for the East Region Insider call series through June 2017

Central Region – Friday, February 3 at 10:00 AM Central Time

Call topics

• Partner Spotlight: RSM
• Partner Insider Scoop: Upcoming events that you don’t want to miss, plus offers in market and resources
• Partner Insights: Steve Mordue with Rapidstart CRM will share how partners can quickly and easily deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 in a low risk, tool driven way that helps them to create new, highly profitable revenue streams
• Demystifying the Big Issues with Microsoft Dynamics 365: Jeff Edwards, Director Partner Channel Marketing, Microsoft Dynamics will address the top 3-5 barriers
• Business insights from Brent Combest, Regional General Manager, US SMB Central Region

Sign up for the February 3 Central Region partner call

Download the calendar reminder from Yammer for the Central Region Insider call series through June 2017

West Region – Friday, February 3 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time

Call topics

• Partner Spotlight: Big Green IT
• Partner Insider Scoop: Upcoming events that you don’t want to miss, plus offers in market and resources
• Increase Leads with Social Media: Learn to create impactful LinkedIn profiles and get the most from Sales Navigator
• Business insights from Eugene Chi, Regional General Manager, US SMB West Region

Sign up for the February 3 West Region partner call

Download the calendar reminder from Yammer for the West Region Insider call series through June 2017

SMB Partner Insider community

• Sign up to be an SMB Partner Insider
• Follow Insider Joe
• Meet Insider Joe on LinkedIn
• SMB Partner Insider Yammer group
• SMB Partner Center website

January 2017 call recordings and presentations

East Region

• Presentation
• On-demand recording
• Transcript

Central Region

• Presentation
• On-demand recording
• Transcript

West Region

• Presentation
• On-demand recording
• Transcript

With the arrival of the December 2016 service update, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 on-premise has adopted its new identity as "Dynamics 365 (On-Premises)". The update adds new capabilities and new licensing decisions for customers. 

Partners who have started working with the the new licensing options say the transition to Dynamics 365 allows CRM on-premise customers to stay the course with their current deployment model, but that cloud licensin...

read more